Reading, UK
Email: mairi.wickens@googlemail.com
Web: https://systemicautism.com

Dr Mairi Evans is a Systemic Therapist and Social Worker with experience of working in social care, child and adolescent mental health, adult mental health, neurodevelopmental services and senior management in the NHS.  Mairi has a professional doctorate in systemic practice, in which she focused on the diagnostic experience of autism for the mothers of autistic girls. Taking a social constructionist perspective and adopting the Co-ordinated Management of Meaning as a lens Mairi has explored the balance and relationship between co-constructed narratives (stories told) and lived experience (stories lived) for autistic people, their families and helping professionals. She has worked to connect theory to practice across health and social care organisations in order to promote connections, improve services and to reduce barriers to healthcare for autistic people and their families.  

As a Clinical Director in the NHS, Mairi has an interest in stories for change in wider NHS systems and the relationship between research narratives, commissioning decision makers, service providers and the individuals that seek support.

Publications:

• Oughtism and Oughtistic Narratives in the Lives of Autistic People and their Families (gvsu.edu)
• Autism and Systemic Practice – Autism and Intersectionality: Implications for Systemic and Relational Psychotherapeutic Practice and Research (systemicautism.com)
• How do Mothers of Autistic Girls Perceive and Experience the Potential Affordances and Constraints of Diagnosis for their Daughters? (Thesis, University of Bedfordshire)
• The “Aha Moment”: Exploring autism narratives as told by the mothers of autistic girls (Murmurations: Journal of Transformative Systemic Practice)

Chapters and articles under review:

• Supporting autistic children to thrive – It’s Everybody’s Business. (Chapter in improving Access to Mental Health Therapies for autistic children and young people; Self Agency, Curiosity and Collaboration (Routledge, in prep.) 
• Borderline Normal – Affordances and Constraints of diagnosis for the mothers of autistic girls. (Beyond Autistic Stereotypes: New Perspectives on Gender, Identities and Experience)
• Perceptions and experiences of UK-based mothers of autistic daughters in relation to the potential affordances and constraints of an autism diagnosis. (Submitted to an international journal and under peer review)